Chipotle Cheese Broccoli Nibblers

I have to admit a deep dark secret… I have been holding out on you! I have been making broccoli nibblers for almost two years now and haven’t shared the recipe. Gulp, my bad. I had every intent to and I had this recipe written up as a posting but it got lost in the shuffle. Better late than never.

Preparation:

Prepare the broccoli by breaking it into medium-sized florets. Snack size. They will shrink a little bit during the drying process.

Using a high-speed blender, combine the following ingredients in this order: water, lemon juice, cashews, yeast, chipotle, garlic and salt.

Blend until it creates a very smooth and creamy sauce. This can take up to 5 minutes, depending on your blender. Stop the blender every so often and scrape the sides down. To test the creaminess, rub some of the cheese sauce between your thumb and forefinger. If you feel grit, continue blending.

Once smooth and creamy add the lecithin. Be sure to grind the lecithin into a powder in a spice grinder before using. Or if you can use soy, you can try the sunflower lecithin. It comes in a liquid form and you would just use the same measurement.

Measure out 2 cups of cheese sauce. Store the remaining sauce in an air-tight container in the fridge. It will last up to 5 days.

Pour the sauce over the broccoli and massage the sauce lightly into the broccoli, making sure everything is well coated.

Place coated broccoli on the teflex sheets that comes with the dehydrator. You can place it on the mesh screen but for the ease of clean up I recommend the teflex sheets.

Sprinkle the broccoli with sea salt.

Dehydrate with the temperature set to 105 degrees on the dehydrator for 6-8 hours, or until dry.

Do you think this recipe would work if I used pumpkin or sunflower seeds instead of cashews?
I can’t bring nuts into schools and one of my children has strong intollerance to nuts.
I would wing it and give it a try but can’t afford any more flops! :)

Hi Shawna,
Might I recommend hemp seeds as first choice? Less of a flavor impact. Sunflower would be good as well but may give a hint of change in the end flavor profile. I have heard of the nut allergy issues in schools and all the restrictions. What a challenge. I will keep that in mind for future recipes as well. I hope these are well received. Keep me posted. :0 amie sue

I have a question, what is the soy lecithin for? I’ve never used it before and it’s in a lot of raw recipes. Is there something I can use instead of it or a substitute for it? Also where can you get it? I love Kale Chips and I love broccoli, so I bet I’ll love these! Thanks. :)

Wow! I just made a half batch of these yesterday and can I say these have to be some of the most tastiest treats to come out of my dehydrator yet! I can’t wait to make another batch and try some different flavor combinations.
I absolutely adore your website and have made several of your recipes and can’t wait to try more – everything comes out perfect and amazing!

OMG! omg! Amie Sue that’s all I can say for all of your recipes! I just made this and the sauce is…..OMG GOOD! This is the first RAW “cheese” sauce that is -lick your fingers-roll your eyes-keep coming back for more-GOOD! I am in heaven! I just dipped some of the raw broccoli in the sauce and ate it and I am in heaven..They finally made it to the dehydrator (only 1/2 a batch, I ate the rest) and I can’t wait for them to be ready..Great recipe!

lol Dee… you made my day by sharing that. Thank you. You can do so much with that cheese sauce too… so keep that recipe handy! Let me know how the end product turns out for you. I find that broccoli haters end up loving this treat! Have a blessed day. amie sue

You say you use soy free lecithin. You showed the product with a link, which now says unavailable. I looked this up and if I am reading right I think this is a liquid yet your recipe calls for soy lecithin ground. Does that mean this needs to be grounded? If so, how do I do that if I can only find this in liquid form? Can I replace this with something else?
Thank you. Blessings
Sherry:D)

I see that Amazon isn’t selling at the moment, but I wanted the link to remain so at least a person could see what I used. You can find it with other vendors over the Internet. If you use the soy lecithin or the sunflower lecithin, it is the same measurement. You can omit it all together if you can’t find it. I add the sunflower lecithin off and on sometimes just for the nutritional value that it offers my body. It is not necessary to have in this recipe other than just for that. These are down right addictive… much like kale chips.. you have been warned. hehe

I haven’t used cashew butter in this recipe. In general (in my experience) 2 cups of cashew pieces makes about 1 1/4 cups of cashew butter. So you can try 1 1/4 cups of the butter. Be careful that you don’t over-process when combining all the ingredients since the cashews are already broken down completely. And yes, you can omit the lecithin. Good luck and enjoy, amie sue